Tuesday, October 7, 2008

my beautifully articulated vision statement for my company, startups

my friend vasanth, sent me this quote from Aldous Huxley which he found in 'small is beautiful'. i have shamelessly borrowed it as the vision statement for my company, startups. thank you vasanth.

the quote is : startups is involved with 'ordinary people doing profitable and intrinsically significant work, of helping men and women to achieve independence from bosses, so that they may become their own employers...'

many people have asked me what is my biz model, and i say my biz model is to facilitate your biz model. youngsters come to me saying they have a damn good idea, they want to be mentored into building a biz around it but they have no resources to pay me for mentoring. and i tell them i dont take any fee. because at this stage of my life i have the luxury of working with entrepreneurs of all shapes, sizes, and hues, without worrying about money because my driving force is to create a mass movement in entrepreneurship in india. with 1.2 billion people, our hedgehog concept is that every indian should be an entrepreneur, creating his own microsoft, britannia, body shop, landmark, zee and disney, as opposed to being employed in them.

so when potential entrepreneurs want me to mentor them in cleaning up their idea, writing a biz plan, structuring their company, evolving an understanding of who they are and where they want to go, if my involvement is episodic, i dont charge at all. if they want me to work with their teams on a sustained basis, commiting x no of hours of physical presence per week, then i charge my fee as a 2.5% -5% stake in the company. never so far have i taken cash upfront as a consulting fee. i work with 24 clients today in different verticals, different stages of incubation, different capex requirement, and the only thing common to all of them is i am available as a resource for them in whatever manner they need my help.

my dream is to make india become that famous 'land of opportunity'.